MOSAIC: Mask optimizing solution with process window aware inverse correction

Optical Proximity Correction (OPC) has been widely adopted for resolution enhancement to achieve nanolithography. However, conventional rule-based and model-based OPCs encounter severe difficulties at advanced technology nodes. Inverse Lithography Technique (ILT) that solves the inverse problem of the imaging system becomes a promising solution for OPC. In this paper, we consider simultaneously 1) the design target optimization under nominal process condition and 2) process window minimization with different process corners, and solve the mask optimization problem based on ILT. The proposed method is tested on 32nm designs released by IBM for the ICCAD 2013 contest. Our optimization is implemented in two modes, MOSAIC_fast and MOSAIC_exact, which outperform the first place winner of the ICCAD 2013 contest by 7% and 11%, respectively.